Borderline personality screener

The MSI-BPD (McLean Screening Instrument for Borderline Personality Disorder) uses 10 yes/no questions about long-standing patterns in your life. Answer based on whether these have been persistently true of you.

The MSI-BPD was developed at McLean Hospital by Zanarini and colleagues in 2003. Its ten items cover the core BPD features: unstable relationships, impulsivity, self-harm, rapid mood swings, chronic emptiness, dissociative experiences and suicidal behaviors.

Each 'yes' scores one point (0-10 total); a cutoff of 7 or more is the commonly used positive screen, with sensitivity around 0.81 and specificity around 0.85 in the validation sample. We also flag a 5-6 'near-cutoff' zone.

A personality 'pattern' means long-standing, repeated, cross-situational experiences — not one bad week after a breakup. A positive screen is best read as 'worth a conversation,' not a label.

Source: McLean Screening Instrument for BPD (Zanarini et al., 2003) · Published openly by the McLean research team for non-commercial use; Chinese items are our careful translation of the published wording. · Original source

Have any of the following been persistently true in your life?

1. Have any of your closest relationships been troubled by a lot of arguments or repeated breakups?
2. Have you deliberately hurt yourself physically (e.g., punched yourself, cut yourself, burned yourself)?
3. Have you had at least two other problems with impulsivity (e.g., eating binges and spending sprees, drinking too much and verbal outbursts)?
4. Have you been extremely moody?
5. Have you felt very angry a lot of the time, or often and repeatedly acted in an angry or sarcastic manner?
6. Have you often been distrustful of other people?
7. Have you frequently felt unreal or as if things around you were unreal?
8. Have you chronically felt empty?
9. Have you often felt that you had no idea of who you are or that you had no identity?
10. Have you made desperate efforts to avoid feeling abandoned or being abandoned (e.g., repeatedly calling someone to reassure yourself that they still cared, begging them not to leave you, clinging to them physically)?